


Being Alive

by AHumanFemale



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, M/M, Raul's Voice, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-05 01:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11567673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AHumanFemale/pseuds/AHumanFemale
Summary: They fought.It was ugly.Sonny is wondering what he can and cannot live without with Rafael, what Rafael never seems to be able to accept from him, but Rafael has other ways of telling him what he needs to hear.[Inspired by me listening to Raul sing "Being Alive" for two days straight.]





	Being Alive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tobeconspicuous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tobeconspicuous/gifts).



 

Sonny heard the first strains in a dream, floating somewhere between sleep and reality.  It took him a moment to fully wake, to get his bearings.  It was just before dawn, the day so new the sun hadn't yet peeked over the horizon. The  bed next to him was warm but empty and Sonny was deeply aware of the ache in his chest at not waking with Rafael’s forehead pressed between his shoulder blades.

They fought last night.  

It was ugly.  One of their worst, and it humiliated Sonny that he'd still been willing to stay.  Willing to crawl into bed with the source of his pain because he was too weak to do anything else.  Too weak to stand up for himself, too weak to leave and watch Rafael’s eyes widen in surprise as he walked out the door.  Too unwilling to risk sending a message he wouldn't be able to take back because he knew how Rafael would take it.  He would let the door close behind Sonny and would never open it again.  

It would kill him.

It would kill him to go back to where they were years ago, before Rafael had mockingly leaned in toward Sonny on the witness stand during trial prep and his eyes had dared him to make up the difference.  He'd thought Sonny had a crush.  Something insubstantial that Sonny would back away from once it seemed like a possibility.  Rafael didn't know the truth.  Not then, anyway.   Maybe not even now, almost a year in.

Music again.

The notes were heavy-handed and dark, seemingly dissonant until they faded into nothing and left behind the harmony buried beneath them.  

Sonny climbed out of bed and threw on his t-shirt from the night before, running his fingers through his hair so the loose curls were out of his face.  Sleep made him lumber and groan down the hallway out of Rafael's bedroom.  His knees cracked audibly as he moved and his bare feet felt cool on the hardwood floor.  Sonny could pace this penthouse blindfolded and never bump a thing.  He'd been here enough times, had fumbled his way down this hallway with his mouth attached to Rafael's neck and his hands on his belt.  It was second nature now to lead himself past the guest room and Rafael’s home office to the mouth of the hallway, the wide living area spread out beyond.  

Rafael was playing music.  

Not a recording.  

It was him.

He was seated behind the piano in his den, shirtless, eyes on the keys in front of him.  Sonny was taken aback, having heard numerous times that the piano was there for decoration or for when his mother visited.  Never once admitting that he knew how to play himself.  Or that he was good at it, Sonny mused as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned into the doorway.  He'd learned a long time ago that accusing Rafael of lying was pointless - there was always some semantic loophole to prevent him, _technically,_ from having given a falsehood.  So Sonny chalked this up to a revelation rather than a secret that was kept from him.

If Rafael knew he was there he didn't let on.  Just kept working long fingers over the delicate segments of smooth ivory. The music was heavy, brooding.  A perfect representation of the awful weight in Sonny's chest.  It appeared Rafael was having similar feelings, if the scowl on his face and his choice of music were anything to go by.  The notes had long pauses between them, opportunities for contemplation.  Chances for Sonny to speak up had he bothered to find his voice.  

“What do you get?” Rafael mourned in a voice gone hoarse and Sonny would have answered but stopped before he'd even taken a breath.

Rafael started singing and Sonny’s heart stopped.

 

_Someone to hold you too close_

_Someone to hurt you too deep_

 

Sonny’s breath caught in his chest because that _voice_ … it was his Rafael, he could hear the acerbic attorney in the tone and timbre of the words filling the room, but it still felt surreal.  He was used to cutting words in that voice.  Pedantic taunts and teasing suggestions, not… not that.  Not song.  Not in a voice shaking with feeling as his shoulders swayed with the tempo of the music and vibrato echoed throughout the rest of the penthouse.  

 

_Someone to sit in your chair_

_And ruin your sleep_

 

Rafael was bitching, Sonny realized with an unimpressed scowl.  He was doing it in key and beautifully but he was still bitching.  The music stayed low and sulky and Rafael’s head never came up to see if he was still alone.  If his impromptu concert had woken Sonny up.  He wanted to be angry but Sonny was typically a heavy sleeper so there was no reason to assume it would have woken him - had this been any other morning, it probably wouldn’t have.  Sonny would have missed this side of his… of Rafael.  

The weight below his sternum kept pressing.

 

_Someone to need you too much_

_Someone to know you too well_

 

It stung, even as he marveled at the man singing before him.  This was a regular complaint of Rafael’s - that Sonny clung to him.  Which took him a while to realize was ridiculous.  Wanting to be with someone wasn’t needy.  Wanting to talk and be close weren’t faults, they weren’t something he should be ashamed of.  He knew that now.  If nothing else, Rafael had at least led him to the realization that there was nothing wrong with him.  There was nothing wrong with him wanting tenderness, wanting familiarity.  He just happened to love someone who flinched away from those things.

He did.  

He loved Rafael.

Against every logical argument, against every survival instinct he had.  Sonny had looked at him with admiration, with longing, long before Rafael had so much as turned an eye upon him with something other than derision.  Sonny could live with that, mainly because it wasn’t going anywhere anyway.  What did he have that Rafael could even want?  He wasn’t educated like Rafael, wasn’t brilliant like him, wasn’t fashionable or knowledgeable or cultured beyond knowing what wine to serve with different kinds of food.  There was nothing there for Rafael, even if he wished there was.

And then… then Rafael leaned in.

Sonny had felt his blood buzzing in his ears and his body went still, not sure if this was real or if he had slipped into one of his waking fantasies.  Those had been plaguing him almost relentlessly at the time, rendering him paralyzed while images of Rafael getting close, touching him, had played behind his eyelids.  It wasn’t until he came the rest of the way and kissed him that he realized he never would have imagined anything better.  The real-life softness of Rafael’s lips, the way he seemed to melt into Sonny.  The way Sonny got out of breath and lightheaded at the soft, biting kisses Rafael bestowed on his bottom lip while his lungs heaved.

What he thought was love before… before then?

It was nothing.

Sonny had been consumed.  There were days he felt there was nothing left - he was giving it all away, giving it all to Rafael, who sometimes seemed to cherish it and other times seemed to find it baffling.  It didn’t matter, not really.  Sonny was never going to stop giving, never going to pull away, never going to go anywhere that didn’t involve the man in front of him - or so he thought at the time.

Rafael was still singing.

 

_Someone to pull you up short_

_And put you through hell_

 

That was pretty rich.

 _Sonny_ putting _him_ through hell.  

Like yesterday had been an ordeal for _Rafael_ and not Sonny, who’d found himself nearly blind with worry and rage.  

He’d been at the precinct, going over a massive pile of arrest reports that needed to be in before midnight.  The lieutenant and Rollins had been packing up to relieve their babysitters and Benson had sighed, exhausted, while Rollins complained about chasing one john up eight flights of stairs earlier in the day.  

“I feel like my legs are going to fall off.”

“Well, we’re better off than Barba at least,” Benson said, putting on her jacket.

Sonny’s head perked up.

“What?” he asked, stomach twisting, “What happened to Barba?”

He knew he had court that day.  Not one of their cases, something that had been kicked to him from homicide.  

“Perp lost it at sentencing,” Benson replied with a scowl.  “It sounds like he got in a few good hits before the bailiff pulled him off.”

Sonny’s knees went weak and his vision tunneled.  

He could barely hear Rollins’ concerned voice asking if he was okay, or Benson’s concerned voice telling him that Barba was fine.  All he could hear was his heartbeat like thunder in his ears and the sound of his own breathing.  By the time he checked back into reality Benson was telling him that the arrest reports could wait and that if he needed to go he could… she knew.  He didn’t know how, knew Rafael wouldn’t have told her because he didn’t believe in that kind of acknowledgment about their relationship, but something about the pity on her face made him certain.

He’d run from the precinct, forgetting his jacket and his holster, and only barely registering the name of the hospital being shouted behind him as he headed for the door.  Every one of his deepest fears had sprung up from the ugly well he kept them in, each one worse than the last.  By the time he’d gotten a cab and they’d pulled into traffic his hands were shaking.  It made it harder to compulsively text and call his… Rafael’s phone, and it certainly wasn’t improved by the fact that he wasn’t getting an answer.

 

_Someone you have to let in_

_Someone whose feelings you spare_

 

Rafael didn’t give a shit about Sonny’s feelings.

He didn’t give a shit about the fact that Sonny had run into the hospital, frantic, asking for him.  Begging to be told where to go, begging to see him.  Almost not hearing the nurses inform him that Mr. Barba had been discharged hours ago.

Rafael didn’t give a shit that Sonny had been beside himself all the way to his apartment, the one they’d left together that morning.  The one where Rafael had, a few hours before, been struggling to lock behind them with Sonny’s lips behind his ear.  The one that Sonny had stormed into, scared and furious, to find Rafael sitting on the couch with an ice pack and a dark expression.  His phone was in front of him, in his hand, and the sight made Sonny see red.  It told him that Rafael knew he’d been trying to get ahold of him and had refused to pick up.

It had been nothing, Rafael swore.

A man accused of murdering a coworker had jumped the witness stand and hit him from behind.  Nothing serious, he’d insisted with a grit of his teeth against the pain of getting up from the couch.  He’d never even hit the ground before the court officer had intervened.  

Even now, as Rafael stretched an arm to reach across the piano, the bruises were there.

Dark blue and purple, punched into his ribs and back.

They made Sonny sick and sad and angry because he should have been there.  He should have been present and even if he wasn’t, he should have known.  Rafael should have called.  Even if it was just a quick text to tell him his day had sucked.  Instead, Sonny had to find out about his… about Rafael’s attack from coworkers who didn’t realize its significance to him.  He’d had to race all over the city, terrified, because Rafael had refused to let him in.  Had tried to keep him at arm’s length.  After almost a year of Sonny’s love, his first instinct was still to push him away.

Sonny wasn’t proud of the yelling.

Rafael seemed to be grateful for it.

Fighting was easier for him, Sonny guessed.  It was easier for him to tear down Sonny’s argument and ignore the emotions behind it.  

Sonny really shouldn’t have been surprised.

 

_Someone who, like it or not_

_Will want you to share a little, a lot of being alive_

 

Now… now something had changed.  The music had lightened, had seemed to grow lightly argumentative rather than angry.  Sonny shifted, looking at Rafael curiously.  It seemed abrupt but the music flowed like it had been written that way so Sonny guessed it had been.  Sonny listened as Rafael’s voice grew thick and the music continued to pick up.

 

_Someone to crowd you with love_

_Someone to force you to care_

 

He did know.

Rafael knew that Sonny loved him.

He could feel it in the slight shake in his voice and the way Rafael’s shoulders tensed as he played, as though he could feel the weight of Sonny’s feelings on his back.  Maybe it was too much for him to bear.  Maybe love wasn’t something Rafael could accept from him if he treated it like a burden rather than a gift.  Maybe that was something Sonny would have to learn to live with.  It was either that or learn to live without it.  

The song continued in a similar vein for a little while but the music continued to swell, to lighten.  Until it became something upbeat, something happy.  Something gently teasing because of course Rafael didn’t want any of these things but then… then it didn’t sound teasing anymore.  

It sounded wistful.

Like Rafael wanted someone to hold him too close, to hurt him too deep.  Someone to sit in his chair and ruin his sleep and Sonny’s throat threatened to close because somehow this had transformed from Rafael bitching to Rafael _wishing_.  As though with the force of expelling the words he would be able to change himself, to make himself open to the kind of love he previously swore he had no use for.  Rafael was asking for someone who could make him feel alive after years of closing himself off.  Of being alone. 

The music turned again, striving and earnest and dramatic and Rafael’s voice changed with it.  Louder, stronger, rougher.

He was still asking.

Someone who could pull him up short, put him through hell.

He was asking for pain.

 

_Make me confused_

_Mock me with praise, let me be used_

 

Sonny confused him.

He wanted it.

He wanted Sonny to use him, to shower him with praise he had no idea how to accept but craved anyway.

When the song reached its crescendo Sonny was openly staring at him, eyes burning hot with tears.  Any other the time the sound of Rafael’s voice breaking might have gone straight south but not now, not this morning.  Not when the sun was rising kaleidoscopic through the glass windows behind him and the bruises were still dark on his skin.  Not when all Sonny could think about was the man in front of him, unable to talk about his feelings at all but willing to sing them while knowing Sonny was there.

Maybe hoping he’d hear.

Rafael looked up and saw him in the doorway but didn’t seem surprised.  Sonny thought he may have looked relieved.  He made eye contact - a long, delicious moment of it that made Sonny’s heart beat faster - and leaned back into the music, voice gaining force.  

 

_Somebody crowd me with love_

_Somebody force me to care_

_Somebody let me come through_

_I'll always be there,_

 

Rafael was serious, Sonny realized.

This wasn’t just an early morning whim.

Rafael was making a promise.

Rafael was promising to try.

Sonny could feel the song ending as Rafael hit the final note, filling all the distance between them in a way that words alone probably couldn’t have.

 

_Frightened as you, to help us survive,_

_Being alive_

 

He was afraid.

But he was going to be there.

They were going to try, together.

Rafael finished with a high note that reverberated through the room and seeped into the silence that followed.  Sonny’s eyes were red and his breathing was short and Rafael was staring at him like he was the one who’d just cracked his chest open and let his every feeling come pouring out.

“You sit in my chair.  You ruin my sleep,” Rafael told him roughly, his voice like gravel after his performance, “And I don’t think I could ever live without you.”

This time a tear did fall and Sonny hurriedly wiped it away, feeling self-conscious.  Rafael saw, he always saw, and he inhaled a quick breath that suggested it hurt him to see it.  

“I love you, Sonny,” he breathed, green eyes locked onto Sonny’s.  “I love you and I don’t know what that means or how to live with it.  I push you away when I want you to crowd me and I flinch when I want to lean in.”

He loved him.

Rafael loved him.

“I’m sorry for yesterday,” Rafael continued at Sonny’s silence.  “I’m sorry for every day I don’t tell you this.  That I don’t give you what you need.  That I don’t… let you in.”

Sonny nodded, running his hand over his cheek again before giving up his space in the door and rushing forward.  He fell to his knees next to the piano bench and pulled Rafael’s face down to his.  Kissing the worry from Rafael’s face, kissing the tears from his.  He felt so light and so heavy and the weight in his chest had only grown but it was the most perfect pressure he’d ever felt with Rafael breathing into his mouth like it was only Sonny he needed to survive.

“I love you.  I _need_ you,” Sonny grated out, pulling away just enough to rest his forehead on Rafael’s.  “I love you so goddamn much that it hurts and I don’t know how to go through the day.  There was no _before_ you, Rafael.  It’s gone and I’m going to stay here, stay with you, as long as you’ll have me.”

Rafael huffed a surprised breath and kissed him again.  Long and slow and sweet, until Sonny's heart broke and mended again. 

“If you want you can consider this a proposal,” he murmured against Sonny’s lips and something broke inside his chest, doubling him over with joy.  “I know we fought last night…”

“... because you’re an asshole.”

Rafael grinned.

“Because I’m an asshole.  I know... I know asking after a fight is a bad idea," he started.

“So it’ll just have to be a long engagement.  And you can ask me again after breakfast,” Sonny finished and felt more tears burning.  Rafael looked bright, cheeks flushed.  The sunrise behind him had nothing on the man in Sonny’s arms.  “I was always going to say yes to you, Rafael.  You could have asked me the moment I first saw you and I would have asked you what day you were free.”

He rolled his eyes but it was hard now for Sonny to see anything other than love in the gesture.

“You would have.”

“Yup.”

“Thank God,” Rafael breathed and leaned down again.

Sonny couldn’t help but agree.

Thank God.


End file.
